The Federal government is expecting another tranche of $500million from the stock of what has come to be known as Abacha loot – the monies stolen and freighted abroad by former the head of state, late General Sani Abacha, while in office.
The amount, according to the government, will soon be repatriated to Nigeria from the United Kingdom, United States of America and France.
The Attorney- General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami, announced after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja, that the expected repatriation is the outcome of negotiations between the Federal government and the three countries where the monies were hidden.
This is coming barely months after the repatriation of $322 million Abacha loot to Nigeria from Switzerland, following an agreement signed by Nigeria and that country.
Malami, who said the processes leading to the repatriation and the aftermath were reported to the council Wednesday, also disclosed that the council approved the payment of N500 million as legal fee to lawyers engaged in the litigation between the Federal government and MTN over the N1 trillion fine imposed on the latter by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC).
“The council approved the payment of professional fees to lawyers engaged by the Federal government relating to the MTN case instituted against the Federal government in pursuance of penalty of over N1 trillion imposed by the government on MTN.
“MTN, as you will recall, instituted a case seeking to retrain the Federal government from recovering the over N1 trillion imposed on it. The Federal government engaged the services of lawyers to put up defence on its behalf. As a result, the case was eventually settled by the parties amicably and arising from that settlement the lawyers were entitled to their fees.
“The Federal government has now approved the payment of N500 million for the N330 billion agreed upon for the alleged certain breaches in their operations. This amount is less than one per cent of the fee instead of the internationally recognised fee which is pegged at five per cent.
“Finally was a report on the global forum on assets recovery. You will recall that in December 2017, the Federal government participated in global forum on asset recovery in Washington DC and during that forum, Nigeria and Switzerland signed agreement that paved the way for the repatriation of $322 million relating to looted assets and on the account of that the amount was eventually repatriated back to Nigeria.
“What transpired was only reported back to the council today. The report today was not only about the signing of the agreement but the report of the eventual repatriation of the amount of money that was signed and agreed to be repatriated during the forum.
“Nigeria has also engaged other countries including the UK, US, France and others in further negotiations relating to repatriation and I am happy to report that we are almost concluding the processes relating to the repatriation of additional $500 million,” Malami said.